


The Lost Chronicles: The Beginning

by Thera_Lance



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, The Ellimist and Crayak are at it again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27115835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thera_Lance/pseuds/Thera_Lance
Summary: The One was never meant to be a player in their game; so, when given the chance, the Ellimist and Crayak agree to reset the cosmic game-board in an effort to restore what they believe is theirs. Of course, for one boy and a yeerk, this simple action ends up changing everything.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

_**I dislike this new player. He doesn't follow any of our rules.** _

_Yet, you've complained so often about our rules._

* * *

He doesn't have a name, not yet anyway. It's lost somewhere out past the trees that tower over him and reach up towards the starless skies.

He knows that he should keep walking, keep looking for…but he's tired and even though the bark feels rough beneath his bare arm, the tree trunk presses solidly against him as he leans into it.

There are no stars. Like he has no name, the galaxy stretched out above him has no stars to define it. It's unsettling because there's something important he can't see. A place that he knows should be up there next to the smallest twinkle of starlight.

That thought barely even exists before a flicker draws his gaze back down. Light peeks out from behind the trees ahead. The trunk still presses solidly against him, but he can always lean his trembling body against another tree a bit closer to whatever is illuminating this nearly pitch-black forest. He's still looking for…his name. He's still looking for his name after all, and maybe he can find it somewhere in the light ahead.

So he walks, one foot in front of the other as he stumbles past the towering trees. His legs don't quite work right, causing it to appear as if the trees drift slowly past him as he makes his way through the wood.

When he passes the last set of trees blocking the source of the light from his eyes, he staggers to a stop. In front of him, the forest is gone. There is only emptiness right before his feet. Pitch black and as bottomless as the sky looming above him.

The light flickers ahead of him like an image cutting in and out of existence. Suspended in the blackness are the scattered remains of a spaceship. Jagged pieces hang in the air in frozen flight as the molten ruins of its engine core explode through its body. Whatever living space it had inside it is gone, torn open and swallowed up by the still fire.

"It wasn't supposed to end like that."

The voice to the side is not unexpected. Not in the way it should be. There shouldn't be a voice here in these woods. There hadn't been one in so long so he should be jolting, turning around and demanding to know the identity of this person.

He only looks to the side, frowning as he stares at the boy who isn't a boy anymore. The not-boy is taller now, taller than him. The height is wrong, more wrong than the deeper voice that outgrew their last conversation.

"But I guess it couldn't end any other way. Not after a crazy, reckless, ruthless order like that."

He's been waiting for this voice, maybe not as rueful as it sounds now, but he's still been waiting all this time. He remembers that just now, the thought flickering in his head like the flames that should be flickering against the metal of the ship.

The man besides him doesn't turn towards him. Instead he continues watching the ship, his gaze going up when sparks of light suddenly appear far in the sky above. The man simply stares at the lights then, his expression unreadable.

He follows the direction of the man's stare. The sparks above fall through the sky. Countless numbers of bright green shooting stars fill up the space above them and reach for the horizon. The bottomless blackness almost seems to rise up to meet them even as it stays lying in wait beneath their feet.

Unlike his name, somehow the number of stars easily surfaces in his thoughts. 17,000 lights fall through the night and bring an eerie brightness to the dark.

"Well, Tom, I guess it's been a while."

He looks back at the man, at Jake who is no longer a child. The small smile wobbles into existence on the other's face. It's relief and longing clashes with the trepidation that plague Jake's eyes.

He stares at the Yeerk-Killer while the souls of thousands fall into the abyss.

There must be something showing through his eyes because the small smile falls away and the trepidation is swallowed up by incomprehensible disbelief.

"No…"

He says nothing, just stares with that inhuman blankness that only his kind can pull off.

"No." Jake steps forward and anger devours disbelief in those hard eyes. "No, where is my brother? Where's Tom?"

He doesn't step back when Jake steps forward again. Instead he breaks his gaze and turns around. The forest still looms before him even while the presence of the flickering lights behind him raise the hairs on the back of his neck.

"ANSWER ME. WHERE'S MY BROTHER? HE SHOULD BE HERE. WHERE IS HE?"

Hands grab at his shoulders and try to pull him back, but he breaks through because their grip is as insubstantial as a ghost's.

It's so clear now. He's been going the wrong way. If he wanted to find his name, he needs to go back because that's where they left it, deep in the woods where no one could find him. It's probably still at that shack, buried in a shallow grave by a little girl who he hates a little less than the murderer trying to pull him back.

Temrash 114 ignores the boy clinging to him and screaming. He only walks forward, back the way he came as the darkness of the forest slides over him just like his name slips back into his head.

Behind the two of them, the dying lights stutter and fade before the bottomless darkness can swallow them whole.

* * *

_**One piece for you and one piece for me. I'd say that's fair. Wouldn't you, Ellimist?** _

_I suppose, Crayak. Far more fair than the tricks that intruder pulled at any rate._

**_Oh, I couldn't agree more._ **


	2. Chapter 2

His head slams against the nightstand as he crashes to the floor. While the alarm clock _thuds_ onto the carpet beside him, Temrash gasps for air. The body won’t cooperate, won’t breathe in when he commands it to. The burning in his lungs throws him into panicked confusion because _it doesn’t make any sense!_

He scrambles through the host’s memories to see what he could have possibly missed only to find nothing. For a fleeting moment, there are no memories to rifle through, no permeation of a secondary presence’s emotions. There is only him alone in the body of his host. Not even the echo of another consciousness responds as he reaches through the nothingness.

And then there is pain. Right through the back of the neck rips a searing flash of white-hot agony that drives him to curl up on the carpet.

_“Aaah!”_

Tom’s scream surfaces through the evaporating pain. The boy’s terror crashes into Temrash’s own panic, sending the yeerk clambering over the swirl of emotions for any kind of stability. Through the maelstrom of their merging fear, Tom’s memories blossom back into existence, but Temrash’s frantic scramble through them to find some explanation for what just happened reveals nothing but…

_Canines stretch towards him before coming down and through._

Temrash’s hand flies to the back of his neck, but the skin (and the muscle and the bone) is intact. A tendon twitches from the phantom sense of pain that pulses under his fingers. However, it’s nowhere near the levels of agony that coursed through the body only moments ago. Nor is it anywhere near as arresting as the throbbing in the side of his head that hit the nightstand.

_“Ow.”_

Tom’s murmur of pain flows sluggishly as Temrash presses a hand against his throbbing temple. For a moment, the yeerk simply stays curled up on the floor, staring at a used pair of socks lying right under the edge of the bed. The boy’s terror is just…gone. As if the fear that had blasted through their shared mental space had never existed at all, Tom’s thoughts trudge past Temrash’s awareness. Dazed confusion permeates every active part of the boy’s mind, leaving Temrash rearing from the emotional whiplash.

There has to be some kind of explanation for this, this, whatever just happened.

Since Temrash isn’t swaddled in the same blanket of confusion as the boy, the yeerk rips his attention away from his aimless stare underneath the bed and dives into the human’s memories, snagging a hold of the image that matches the faded pain along his neck.

Canines and death. That’s all that comes to mind no matter how deep he digs nor how carefully he pauses over the incomplete image. There is no context. No identity associated with the teeth that closed in on him. The only accompaniment to the image is a stench of blood that fills his nostrils…That aren’t in the right place.

Surfacing from the memory, Temrash places his free hand on the human nose upon his face. It feels like it always does but the nose he had in that singular image felt more like a hork bajir’s, nostrils closer to the same plane as the eyes but stretched out farther away.

Unease trickles at the differing physical sensations from the faded image and his current reality, but before Temrash can truly think over it, a different, odd memory flickers by far faster than the sluggish flow of Tom’s current thoughts. As quick as a serpent strike, Temrash snatches it before it sinks back under Tom’s conscious. A forest with its canopy ill-defined against a pitch-black sky stays frozen under the yeerk’s scrutiny. A context maybe. It had to have been a dream with how fragmented the images are and with how he obviously doesn’t have severed spine. Maybe some kind of attack in the woods? Tom’s been in the woods near his hometown plenty of times, so of course it makes sense for them to feature in some nightmare or another.

_“What…are you doing?”_

Tom’s sluggish thoughts would be ignorable if that last one hadn’t been directed at Temrash. The yeerk doesn’t respond to the boy because it should be obvious to the human that he is searching through his memories. The nearly physical sensation of a yeerk rifling through their host’s thoughts is something that cannot be missed. Also, Tom should be seeing this frozen image of the woods. He wouldn’t have any choice but to witness what memory Temrash had dragged out—

When Temrash checks his host’s focus he notes that Tom only sees underneath the bed. The boy is dazed and trying to recall what he did before sputtering awake. But of all the memories that Tom tugs to the surface, none of them are of the forest. The dream memory that Temrash had latched onto didn’t come from the human. It came from the yeerk’s own thoughts.

Maybe if yeerks actually dreamed like humans that would make sense, but they don’t. While they do rest, yeerks don’t truly sleep; so, the only dreams that a yeerk ever witnesses are those of their host. But right now, Temrash clutches onto an image of the forest that didn’t come from Tom and that should be impossible.

There’s a knock at the bedroom door and Temrash flinches out of his thoughts.

“Tom? Are you alright? I thought I heard a bang down here.”

The voice of the host’s mother comes through the closed door, but she herself makes no move to open it. Temrash twists his head to stare at the doorknob before shoving himself off the floor.

“Yeah, Mom, I’m fine. I just…fell out of bed.” It is the truth in a sense, even if the embarrassment that Temrash mixes into his tone is a lie. The adrenaline coursing through his system is too much of a distraction for any of the more foolish emotions to develop.

“Really?” Amusement fills her voice. “Well, anyway, breakfast is done if you’re ready to come down and eat.”

“Okay, be there in a minute.” Temrash listens to the softening sound of her receding footsteps. Even when he no longer hears them, he still stares in the direction of the door. His focus is inward though as he scours through Tom’s most recent memories again. No dream of that forest appears in this search.

Temrash frowns and then snatches a discarded shirt on the floor before pulling it on. The motion sends a wave of nausea through the body that’s followed by another set of throbbing from his temple.

Leaning against the bed for just a second, Temrash breathes in deeply while lightly touching the side of his head. The room seems too quiet with only the soft sounds of his breathing. Yet…it really isn’t the room that’s too quiet. Tom is silent. His emotions sink low beneath Temrash’s own and he thinks of nothing as Temrash finishes getting dressed for this morning.

Every single day since Temrash had settled into Tom’s head, the boy has raged or despaired depending on the hour. Every waking moment has been filled with insults or threats or surges of demanding emotions that have been annoyingly distracting while Temrash has performed his duties for the Empire. While Temrash would certainly be pleased for the human to just shut up during any part of the day, this sudden silence is unnerving.

It’s like the human isn’t even there.

_“Tom.”_

The boy’s consciousness barely ripples with acknowledgement at Temrash’s short addressment.

 _“Have you finally realized how futile it is to fight me? I have to say, it’s quite pleasant to wake up without your pointless babbling.”_ Temrash sneers.

Tom hears him. Temrash can feel the boy’s attention on him, but there isn’t any reaction. Anger doesn’t rise up at the taunt nor does despair descend as Tom finally realizes that there would be no escape from a lifetime as a host. There isn’t anything but confusion at the way Temrash speaks to Tom. And then there isn’t any sensation of emotion at all when that confusion fades away.

Temrash stares incredulously at nothing as the boy just slips off into sleep inside his own mind. Hosts can sleep lightly when the yeerk is controlling the body, that isn’t what is so unbelievable. But, Temrash was _talking_ to Tom. He can’t just roll over and ignore him. The boy wouldn’t do that anyway. It isn’t in his defiant nature to resist a challenge.

It…it has to be the still throbbing headache. The human’s head hit the nightstand too hard and now the boy’s suffering some kind of concussion. That would explain everything. The fragmented images, the dazed confusion, the complete lack of normal aggression. Even the fact that Temrash has an image of the forest that Tom does not can easily be rationalized. The injury must have affected the immediate encryption of that particular dream, so Tom lost most of it out of his physical memory. That would have left Temrash with whatever few images that he had been paying attention too during their sleep. He hardly pays any attention to the human’s inane dreams anymore, so of course the yeerk would only be left with one or two fragments recorded onto his own memory banks.

All Temrash has to do is wait a few days and the concussion’s effects should dissipate. Tom would unfortunately be back to his ranting and mouthing at that point, but maybe if Temrash is lucky than the human will learn how much easier it is for both of them if he just stays quiet.

With the morning oddities explained, Temrash finally leaves the room to savor the tastes of breakfast. It’s easy to school his expression into Tom’s usual groggy morning appearance. All Temrash has to do is to ignore the unnerving near emptiness in the human mind he surrounds. 


	3. Chapter 3

With his beak tucked under his wing, the hawk sleeps through the morning sun creeping in through the opening in the barn’s hayloft. His reddish-brown feathers glow as the rays strike them, and Cassie wants to reach out and touch them. She can’t though, not only because the spaces in the cage wiring are too small for her fingers to get through, but also because the hawk would be startled awake by the sudden contact. He might hurt himself in panic trying to get away from a strange, threatening human.

Even knowing this, Cassie is still tempted to open the cage door and place her hand gently on the bird’s wing. Despite her presence, the red-tailed hawk continues to sleep unaware of the attention it receives. Even though she scrutinizes him closely, there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with the bird. The protective wrappings around his sprained wing still are bound nice and tight to his body, and his breathing seems to be at a normal pace. It’s just…there’s something off.

Cassie glances at the frozen rat besides the cage that her father left out to thaw for the bird’s breakfast. There doesn’t seem to be anything missing from the hawk’s early morning care. But something drew her to this particular patient, and Cassie doesn’t want to leave for school just yet if there’s something wrong that she’s missing.

This off feeling has happened before. Ever since Cassie could remember, she has always helped with the animals that her wildlife veterinarian parents take in. She knows the breathing patterns of a falcon with lung inflammation, the smells of a wound left unclean for too long, the sight of a fox that’s just lethargic from his meds rather than from something more sinister.

When there’s something wrong with one of their animal patients who had been seemingly fine, sometimes there’s just this feeling that rises up. Like there’s a part of Cassie that knows something’s off before the rest of her conscious self picks up on it. She supposes it’s a bit like how her gymnast friend Rachel just knows the right moments to leap off the balance beam. It’s a skill, helping animals heal or preforming gymnastics, that’s been practiced for so long that the knowledge is just ingrained deep inside of her.

Even so, this ability to tell if something is wrong isn’t ingrained enough if Cassie can’t tell what that something is. She nibbles at the corner of her lip before checking over the red-tailed hawk again and finding nothing _again_.

“Cassie? What are you still doing in the barn? The bus is coming down the road.”

Cassie jumps, spinning towards the source of the voice—her father—who frowns at her while lugging in a pair of dripping, cleaned cages.

“Oh, um, I was just checking on the hawk.” She glances back at the bird that now glares at the loud male human that disturbed its sleep.

“Well, I’ll take a look at him. You need to get to school.” Her father assures while shelving the cages below an empty worktable. “You’re going to have to run to the house to grab your book bag in time.”

And so off she goes, but not without looking back one last time at the bird who watches her disappear through the barn door.

* * *

Cassie manages to make it just before the bus driver gives up waiting and drives off without her. The heavy backpack drags her down as she trudges up the steps. Lacking the breath to say hello to the driver, she gives a weak nod in response to his greeting before plodding over to her seat in the back.

She passes by the handful of other kids who live farther out than her with only a few mutual glances in lieu of actual greetings and hellos. She really isn’t friends with any of them, but that hasn’t bothered her in a long time so she doesn’t dwell too much on their near complete dismissal. Settling into her seat, Cassie turns to stare out the window as the country slowly gives way to the town’s outer suburbs.

The outside view passes by as she still sees the hawk watching her as she ran out the door. She probably was wrong about the bird. The off feeling hadn’t started out in the barn anyway, but right after she had woken up. For a moment, the bed had been too narrow, the door and window off-center like they were placed a few feet away from where they should be. Yet when she had blinked, the offness of the room had faded with the dream that she had emerged from.

The dream was…Cassie really can’t remember what it was about, but it must have taken place in a room different than her bedroom if she was so confused upon waking.

“Hey Cassie. Whoa, sorry for scaring you.”

There’s a boy standing over her. Dark eyes, dark hair, shoulders that aren’t as broad as they should be.

_What…_

Cassie slowly blinks while lethargy crawls out of her mind and over her body.

“Um, Cassie?” Jake asks in a voice that isn’t as deep as it is supposed to be. “Are you okay?”

“What?” Cassie shakes her head as the lethargy refuses to leave, sinking deeper into her mind and making her want to sleep.

“Why wouldn’t she be?” States a voice. It latches on to the stupor that threatens to take a hold and peels it back.

A girl, possessing blue eyes and golden hair, pushes past Jake and leans over the empty seat besides Cassie. As she leans closer, any lethargy within Cassie’s body burns away under the intense stare the girl directs at her.

_Oh god._

The girl places a hand on Cassie’s, frowning as she studies her face.

“Cassie, you’re really pale. Are you sick?” The girl demands to know.

_Oh god, Rachel._


End file.
